This is going to be a bit of a weird comparison but it occurred to me that two of the biggest movies in recent years (The Last Jedi and Avengers: Infinity War) both have side quests in them so that our heroes find a way to stop their respective threats.
In the case of TLJ, Finn and Rose go off to Canto Bight to find the code breaker. With Infinity War, Thor and Rocket go off to build the stormbreaker. Both of these missions ultimately fail.
Canto Bight has been critiqued pretty often but I feel that it ties into what Yoda says about failure being a great teacher. Finn finally stops being a coward but fails this time instead of being the hero like he was in Force Awakens.
Thor goes from getting his ass kicked in the beginning, goes through a trial to acquire the stormbreaker (he tanks a star) to almost turning the tide in Infinity War.
I think where Canto Bight fails and where the Storbreaker quest succeeds is in the character moments. Thor's quest has an interesting arc and when he made his appearance in Wakanda with Stormbreaker my audience actually cheered. There was some kind of payoff.
Canto Bight was just kind of a wet fart. It could have better handled the development of Finn and Rose but I don't know if it was the pacing or the script or the delivery of the acting but the whole thing just fell flat. I get that they were probably trying to get the film to breathe and I understand the message they were trying to send about failure but there needs to be some kind of payoff. Maybe we will get it in Episode 9?
In the case of TLJ, Finn and Rose go off to Canto Bight to find the code breaker. With Infinity War, Thor and Rocket go off to build the stormbreaker. Both of these missions ultimately fail.
Canto Bight has been critiqued pretty often but I feel that it ties into what Yoda says about failure being a great teacher. Finn finally stops being a coward but fails this time instead of being the hero like he was in Force Awakens.
Thor goes from getting his ass kicked in the beginning, goes through a trial to acquire the stormbreaker (he tanks a star) to almost turning the tide in Infinity War.
I think where Canto Bight fails and where the Storbreaker quest succeeds is in the character moments. Thor's quest has an interesting arc and when he made his appearance in Wakanda with Stormbreaker my audience actually cheered. There was some kind of payoff.
Canto Bight was just kind of a wet fart. It could have better handled the development of Finn and Rose but I don't know if it was the pacing or the script or the delivery of the acting but the whole thing just fell flat. I get that they were probably trying to get the film to breathe and I understand the message they were trying to send about failure but there needs to be some kind of payoff. Maybe we will get it in Episode 9?